About a week ago or so there was a nutrition brief that Jeanne got setup for all of the people she trains. We gathered in a conference room at the Health Promotions building on base to listen to the on-base nutritionist. I’ve been reading all sorts of books, articles and studies about nutrition for years – out of interest for my own body and health – and thought I wouldn’t hear anything new. I was wrong! I heard one thing that has ROCKED my world!

The nutritionist opened by stating that as a nation we are all hopped up on sugar! LOL! She had my attention – me having my own sugar demons that I must give semi daily sacrificial virgins to keep their mind controlling hunger pangs at bay.

Here is what was the most interesting and the most vital piece of information (for me) – Carbohydrates breakdown into glucose – not immediately but after the carb goes into your intestines and is broken down into a liquid.

So here’s the skinny:

(1) It puts the food in its mouth! Imagine the carbohydrate is a linked chain. Each link of the chain is a monosaccharide (mono=single, saccharide = sugar) and several links would be a polysaccharide (poly = several, saccharide = sugar). Chewing your food up is like cutting up this chain into separate chunks and the saliva breaks it down chemically. Here is where the poly becomes a mono.

(2) It swallows the food! In the stomach our food hangs out and parties for about 4 hours before it is truly worn out and broken down for further digestion. The stomach muscles go all disco on the food using contractions of the stomach muscles to break it down into a semi-liquid called chyme. Picture chyme as short chunks of chains composed of 5 links each. These short chunks facilitate the breakdown of carbohydrates in the small intestine.

(3) In the intestines the chyme is slowly released from the stomach – here the breakdown that started in the mouth is done. NOW – Enzymes from our pancreas come out to play w/ the chyme. The enzyme breaks down the small chunks of carbohydrates into individual links = they are now monosaccharide. Monosaccharide, or better known as glucose, are taken up by the cells of the intestines and go into the bloodstream.

ARE YOU STILL WITH ME? So basically we just ate some carbs and now our tummy is passing it along to our intestines and it has gone from carbs to chunks, to liquid to sugar.

(4) Now that we have made carbs into glucose – we experience a bit of a spike in the amount of glucose in our blood. This influx of glucose causes the pancreas to release insulin, which is a hormone that plays a major role in our metabolism – that is where our liver comes in.

(5) In addition to using glucose as a source of energy (yee-haw) it also stores the excess (over consumption or low activity levels cause this) glucose as glycogen (another form of sugar). Glycogen is later converted back to glucose between meals to be used for energy if our sugar levels go down.

(6) Fat cells take up glucose from the blood and convert it into ATP (adenosine triphosphate – this lives in the biochemistry of our muscles). When there is an excess of ATP, as in when we eat more than our bodies need, fat cells convert ATP to fat. This is why when we over eat or eat more frequently then we need to that our body fat increases and ultimately our body weight increases, along with risks for all sorts of medical/health issues.

She explained all this to then explain how to read how much sugar is REALLY in something you are about to eat – and THIS info is what is haunting me! So when you look at a food label and it lists Carbohydrates (grams or %) and right below this is the Sugar (grams or %). Since we now know that carbs = sugar in our bodies we can deduce that the sugar listed directly below the carbs is the amount of ADDED SUGAR that is in this product to make our taste buds like it!

Do you get what I’m saying – this sugar is the extra they put in it to just make us like the taste of it more. Eventually our taste buds get so used to this extra sugar being in everything we eat – we no longer like the taste of things that are low in sugar or just have their natural sugars.

Yoplait = 27g of sugar

Snickers = 24g of sugar

Guess what else she told me???? The daily recommended amount of sugar is only 22 grams… My Yoplait yogurt has 27g of added sugar that is MORE than a Snickers bar. Now I look at all the labels and am just perplexed at how much added sugar is in EVERYTHING. So this should tell us easily – why our nation is so obese even though we are all eating lower fat meals and trying to be smart about whole grains and such. We have replaced all the fat with sugar.

This being Easter weekend it made me realize just how focused our lives really are on sugar.

Hey – HAPPY BIRTHDAY, here’s some cake, ice-cream and a box of chocolates and dinner out to your favorite place.

Hey – Happy Easter, here’s a basket full of candy and fun festivities all centered around finding little eggs w/ more candy inside of them and then we’ll have a huge dinner in celebration.

Hey, Happy President’s day lets go to the parade where people will throw fists full of candy at us and we’ll all compete to get the most candy possible and we all know someone in the office will bring bagels or donuts for this festive day!

All of our seasonal festivities, holidays, b-days, and any party atmosphere are focused around FOOD but mainly on desserts and treats for our taste buds. We are all hopped up on sugar all the time!

This reminds me of when I was a young adult and I thought that FUN meant DRINKING! It took me a long time and some harsh realizations to figure out that I don’t need to drink to have a fun time at a party or get together. And this is sort of like that – I don’t need to gorge myself on food and dessert or candy in order to fully ENJOY my food or to fully partake in the festivities of the event. How can I make sure that I get that message to my children?

I’m definitely not over my need to eat sweets – as I ate all of Nola’s Easter Candy (she only found 8 eggs)! But I am glad that I have this awareness now and feel that I am slowly on the path to recovery… ;o)

Training Updates:

Thursday: I was in a world of HURT on this day! Jeanne had me do rounds of 10 Burpees (the push-up/jump thing) and then a 400m sprint for (the goal was 10) 8 rounds. I didn’t like this at all and I’m pretty sure I said it out loud a few times. The point was to make me be in the world of hurt and still be focused and push through. I struggled. I hated the burpees the most. The runs weren’t so bad but only because I wasn’t pushing as hard as I should have. I’ve regretted it ever since. I hate feeling like I could have given more effort after a workout. It sticks with me for days.

I think my problem is that I push myself as hard as I have always BUT my threshold of lactic acid pain is getting higher and I am not pushing myself into that new area of ability to maintain. Does that make sense? So to people on the outside – I look like Ia m really giving a hard effort and for the Sarah that I was 4 months ago I am. But I am this new Sarah who is (I’m gonna brag a little) really a lot tougher/stronger than she was coming into this just a few months ago. Jeanne – if you’re reading this – I think my ass needs to be kicked just a little harder! Lol! I’m probably gonna regret saying that but I hate feeling like I should have pushed harder.

Saturday – didn’t make it out for my run. Rain all morning and then I had a helper (Jeanne’s super sweet daughter) come over to watch Nola so I could get some serious cleaning and homework done.

Sunday – Ran 7.5 miles on Kadena AFB – bad choice of route. I had seen (from the road) what looked to be a good path to run. I parked my car and headed out on this path and then it turned into a road and then it turned into a hilly mess. I was in a world of hurt – some of the hills were so steep that I had to walk and I was literally leaning forward with my head between my arms looking at my feet pushing up these hills! I had no idea where I was but as soon as I saw a main road I ran for it and continued the rest of my run on the main streets of the base. I severely underestimated the distance back to the car and ended up having to run all around another hilly residential area to make up the last 2 miles I needed to complete my run. I now realize I might have to start actually planning and mapping my routes before I run them!

Nutrition Updates:

I still love this Paleo way of eating. I made myself some super yummy poached eggs the other morning w/ 3 turkey sausage patties and half of an avocado sliced w/ a small glass of milk. I found the technique of how to do a real poached egg (not the microwave poached way) from a really cool blog called everydaypaleo dot com.Breakfast has mainly been different forms of eggs and sometimes sausage or ham as the main source of protein. My lunches have been salads w/ leftover meat from dinner tossed in. Dinner is always something new!

Fitness Milestones: I won my second Presidential Award for fitness and I am also 1/4 way done w/ the fitness “Summit Challenge” being held by Sempfer Fit on base. I signed up for the 500 miles in 12 months challenge!!

Miles ran this week = 12.51

YTD = 161.06

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